


and all at once (you are the one i have been waiting for)

by snitchdragon



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Coffee Shops, Fluff, M/M, cigarettes and alcohol, jihoon hates spicy food, jihoon is a fairy, just a little though, lee chan is jihoon's brother, soonyoung is lonely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-15 10:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14788790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snitchdragon/pseuds/snitchdragon
Summary: Soonyoung is a stubborn hopeless romantic who doesn't believe in soulmates. Jihoon is a lost fairy looking for a place to call home.In which two boys, completely different but somehow almost identical in nature, manage to find everything they want within each other.





	and all at once (you are the one i have been waiting for)

**Author's Note:**

> this.. is the first fanfiction i'm posting on ao3 and im not going to lie its pretty shit and i'm terrified of posting this but hey, it's okay. room for improvement right?
> 
> anyways, first of all thank you so much to the creators of svt big bang for being so supportive and kind throughout this whole ordeal, also thank you so much to s and a for teaching me how to speak english and staying up with me when i suddenly get inspiration late into the night, i wouldn't have been able to finish this without you.
> 
> enjoy this thing i barely managed to shove together during assessment week in between classes, during meetings and on my phone on the train every morning and night. i hope this is alright, constructive criticism is widely appreciated.
> 
> thank you, and enjoy :)
> 
> also the first part and the last part are shit and unbetaed ... yikes. i'll change it someday.

Kwon Soonyoung stops believing in soulmates on his sixth birthday, exactly 10 years before he would’ve gotten his soulmate mark.

While others fantasized about their sixteenth birthdays, when soulmate marks — colorful lines that spiked to the beat of their hearts — would appear on their wrists, he would sit back and sigh, rolling his eyes.

Soulmates.

As if fate was actually real.

As if the world would ever make it so easy for two people to find love within one another. Pure, mind-numbing, absolute, undying love, within someone curated by the universe just for you.

As if such a thing would exist.

So when his friends turned sixteen one by one, colorful lines appearing on their wrists and eyes burning bright with the determination of finding their soulmate, all he could bring himself to do was to sit back and watch defeatedly, too fed up to encourage them but too much of a good friend to stop them.

Because Kwon Soonyoung doesn’t believe in soulmates, but that doesn’t mean Kwon Soonyoung doesn’t believe in love.

 

-

 

It’s his sixteenth birthday, and Soonyoung is lying on the grass with his friends; Seungcheol, Wonwoo, Jeonghan, Joshua and Minghao. They’re in some kind of circle, half-listening to Joshua talk non-stop about the new TA in his class who’s cute but sucks at teaching, whilst passing around a bottle of booze Jeonghan had managed to sneak out of his part-time job at the convenience store.

It’s a pink glass bottle, something new and different to the tall green bottles of wine or golden cans of beer that he usually pulled out of his bag.

“It’s fragile and rosy,” Jeonghan had joked, “just like Soonyoung.” He’d gotten a punch in the stomach and a protest of “but I’m stronger than you!” for that, but afterwards Soonyoung still let Jeonghan pour him a cup.

He picks it up now, the forlorn yellow cup sitting by itself in the green grass. When it touches his tongue, the first thing he registers is that it tastes like shit, but he downs it and asks for more, the cigarette previously pressed between his lips forgotten and stubbed out in the soil. Soonyoung was a shit smoker in the sense that he always forgot about his cigarettes after a few drags, and then either lost them or accidentally squashed them wherever he put them.

It’s his sixteenth birthday, and he’s supposed to get his soulmate mark in the next hour, and he’d much rather not. For the entire day, his mind’s been swimming with thoughts that he’s been trying to block out for nearly ten years, dragged absentmindedly to the surface by the prospect of finally getting his own soulmate mark. He doesn’t want them there, there’s a reason why they were blocked out in the first place.

He hopes the alcohol would wash them away.

That’s his mindset as he downs 3 more cups.

“Slow down, tiger,” Minghao chides, patting him on the back when he chokes back a cough at the burning sensation it carries as it rolls down his throat, “you’re going to get alcohol poisoning.”

“Great,” he says, only half joking, but he sets the cup down anyways, seeing the other boy’s stern glare.

“Are you even listening?” Joshua protests, and as the group sends him half-hearted nods he sighs and gives up. “Sorry, he’s really cute. That’s all.”

“Really? I don’t think you mentioned that,” Wonwoo quips, and Joshua throws a cup at him. He catches it, grinning, and throws it back at Joshua, who dodges it.

The six of them watch the yellow plastic cup roll down the side of the grassy hill and towards the busy grey road below, where it is squashed by an oncoming car.

“Hey Soonyoung,” Wonwoo says, suddenly, “did you get your mark yet?”

He laughs dryly. “Does it look like I fucking care?”

“Yes,” Wonwoo deadpans.

Soonyoung holds his piercing stare for maybe a total of 10 seconds (he really can’t with Wonwoo, his eyes always manage to make Soonyoung feel like shit) before he gives in with a sigh, lifting his arm up so they can all take a look.

His skin is milky white, for years of sunburning instead of tanning had forced him to surrender to some heavy SPF shit every single time he so much as attempted to leave the house. He must’ve missed the exact time (not that he cares much), because there’s already a faint line on his wrist, growing darker by the second, like it’s settling into his skin.

“Wow,” he says, mouth running on autopilot while his brain stays in curious awe, “this sure is something.”

Where there was supposed to be a colorful line, pulsing in the time with the heartbeat of his soulmate, he’d gotten a long black line encircling his wrist.

“No soulmate,” Joshua says quietly, and those two words hang precariously in the crisp June air.

Soonyoung cuts the tense silence with a scoff. No soulmate. The words ring in his ears and he doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He chooses the former. “I expected as much.”

Minghao takes his arm and traces the line along his wrist. It's distinct now, and dark, like a cursed bracelet. “It’s kind of pretty,” he says, earning a scoff from Wonwoo, who gets a thud on the shoulder in turn.

“You know what,” Soonyoung says thoughtfully, “it’s alright.”

“Are you sure?” Seungcheol asks him, cocking a concerned eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Soonyoung shrugs, peeling his eyes off the stupid thing, staring up at the clear blue sky with a small smile on his face, “you don’t need a soulmate mark to find love.”

“Mmm,” Jeonghan nods, face carefully passive but voice lilting in a way that lets Soonyoung know that he’s still skeptical, “okay, whatever you say.”

 _It's easy for him_ , Soonyoung thinks, glancing over at the older boy, _he’s found his soulmate_. Jeonghan’s fingers are intertwined with Seungcheol’s in the grass, shoulders pressed close. Their soulmate lines join together, just visible above the sprigs of green; a seamless pulse that links their arms and their hearts.

He realizes he’s been staring at it for way too long when Wonwoo chokes on his cigarette.

“It’s just that,” Soonyoung explains, more to himself than anyone else, “I don’t want to have to love someone just because the world has told me that they’re my soulmate. If I fall in love, I’ll fall in love unprompted, without anyone or anything to tell me who or when to do it with.”

The boys fall silent.

“Aww,” Jeonghan teases, reaching over to ruffle his hair, “our little Soonie is growing up!” His friends burst into laughter and Soonyoung stifles his grin.

“I actually hate you,” he stands up and Jeonghan takes off across the grass, filling the air with his bubbly laughter.

He stands up and runs after him up the hill, wind brushing past his face, grinning widely as his feet pound across the wide expanse of grass, adrenaline rushing through his bones and prompting his own giggles to slide out of his mouth.

“You’re never going to catch me,” Jeonghan taunts, laughing as Soonyoung nearly trips over.

“Watch me, Yoon Jeonghan, all those track and field medals you’ve gotten are just chunks of metal-” he’s looking up and not paying attention to where he’s stepping, so he doesn’t notice when the front of his shoe catches on a stone and he plummets to the ground, knees hitting the soil with a large thud.

“Fuck!” He yells on impulse, and then realizes what he’s tripped on.

It’s a stone, alright, but it’s nothing like he’s ever seen before. It’s grey at first glance, but as he continues to stare at it it becomes obvious that it’s actually crystal clear, reflecting the grey of the cloudy sky above. What’s most intriguing to Soonyoung is the fact that within the stone, encased within the clear substance, is a spark, akin to a flame. Light purple, with specks of pink and white and orange, dancing as if it was alive.

He feels drawn to it. It’s warm to the touch and it’s beautiful. So beautiful. It sinks into his grasp like it was made for him and he slips it into his pocket.

He hears Jeonghan is running down the slope towards him, white Converse kicking up flecks of soil that stick to the dirtying hem of his pants and flick onto Soonyoung’s face, and he wipes them away, rolling his eyes.

Jeonghan brushes his long hair out of his face, and Soonyoung accepts the hand he offers and gets pulled to his feet. A smile finds his way to his face as he returns to the group, the stone forgotten in the pocket of his jeans.

 

–

 

Maybe his friends were right to be concerned, because after that, nothing happens for 3 years on Soonyoung’s part, and he’s slowly getting tired of waiting.

On the other hand, Minghao gets his soulmate mark a year later and realizes that his soulmate is the hot guy in the debate team that everyone knows he’s got a thing for (but refuses to admit) _right_ at his own birthday party.

Soonyoung is sitting next to Minghao when that happens, so he can’t really do anything but be happy for him.

He watches their marks connect with each other and pretends his heart doesn’t clench up a little bit in his chest.

Minghao starts to drift after that, so it’s just him and Wonwoo and Joshua and Seungcheol and Jeonghan. But then they graduate a few months after with the promise of visiting every so often, so the only few left are him and Wonwoo and Joshua, who’s just a few months too young to graduate with the other two.

(Not that he wouldn’t be capable – Joshua knows the curriculum inside out and more, and Soonyoung wouldn’t put it past him to graduate with flying colors in a year he’s technically too young for.)

They spend their last summer with Seungcheol and Jeonghan before they fly off to their respective colleges and then senior year trundles by without so much of a hitch or a hindrance, and suddenly they’re preparing for their final exams.

Soonyoung and Joshua are sitting in the library, Soonyoung puzzling over calculus and Joshua scribbling furiously on an English Literature past paper, when someone steps up to their table.

“Sorry, but do you-” and then the voice stops. Soonyoung glances up from his calculus and sees a boy, maybe in the year or two below them. He has messy brown hair, held back by a red bandanna, and hazel eyes. He’s holding an English Literature library book and a card in one hand and his mouth is wide open.

Joshua is looking at him the exact same way.

“I swear to fucking god-” Soonyoung groans, grabbing his books, and Joshua glances at him, mouth still wide open in shock or in awe or whatever the fuck, he doesn’t know, “you know what, call me or something when you’re done. I’m going to find my math teacher. Have fun. Don’t die.” Soonyoung offers his seat to the younger boy and he sits down, still staring at Joshua.

Soonyoung shoots him a look and rolls his eyes. Soulmates are weird.

“I- yeah- what?” Joshua stutters, and then, “what? _How?_ Hi, I’m Joshua, _what?_ ”

“I don’t- I don’t know. I’m Vernon. Hi.”

“Fucking weird,” Soonyoung mumbles to himself, trudging out of the library. It’s like the universe likes to laugh at him by putting soulmates together right in front of his face.

Funny.

 

–

 

The exams come and go. Joshua gets into Harvard, obviously, and both Soonyoung and Wonwoo take a gap year. Wonwoo plans to travel the world, and Soonyoung decides to go with the flow, whatever that means. He honestly just wants a break from school, and to figure out what the hell to do with his life.

He hopes it’ll work.

Graduation comes, and ends in festivities. Minghao and his boyfriend Junhui show up, as well as Joshua and his boyfriend Vernon. They yell at Jeonghan and Seungcheol through Wonwoo’s Facetime and laugh the night away on Joshua’s rooftop. Old habits die hard, so they’re accompanied by cigarettes between their lips and bottles of emptied liquor rolling around the ground between them.

“You guys are a shitty influence,” Minghao lets out an intoxicated hiccup that sends Soonyoung off into a fit of giggles.

“You could always just _not drink_ ,” Junhui chides him, and his (now mullet-sporting) boyfriend smacks him on the head.

“How could you say such a thing!” He gasps in mock horror and Jun rolls his eyes.

“Hey, guys,” Vernon looks up from his phone, “you know Seungkwan found his soulmate after graduation.”

Soonyoung almost scoffs but manages to hold himself after Wonwoo shoots him a pointed glance. “Really, who is it?” Wonwoo’s voice is grounding, and reminds Soonyoung to force himself to stay calm.

Minghao reads over Vernon’s shoulder and blinks, “who the fuck is Seok- oh, the kid in my biology class,” he makes a face, “fuck, he’s so loud. Those two will be a disaster.”

“It’s cute, though, they bumped into each other because Seungkwan walked into the wrong classroom,” Vernon smiles and Joshua’s head falls onto his shoulder, bumping his cheek with his forehead.

“You’re cute,” he says, and Soonyoung gags.

“ _You’re_ making me throw up.”

“Shut up you closeted romantic,” Wonwoo chides, “we all know you read fanfiction fluff behind our backs.”

“Jeon Wonwoo, you better square up your scrawny ass because I’m about to beat it,” Soonyoung threatens, but all his best friend does is smirk.

“Kinky.”

“Fuck off.”

“So, Soonyoung,” Joshua cuts in, “speaking of kinky-“

“Can we not speak of _kinky_?” Jun asks, but Joshua ignores him.

“How’s your love life been recently?”

“Are you mocking me?” Soonyoung asks, half joking half serious, and Joshua widens his cat eyes in innocence.

“No, not all!” He’s not mocking him, he’s pitying him, and somehow this makes it all the much worse.

“It’s fine,” Soonyoung says, and it’s curt and pointed. Joshua pats him sympathetically and he moves subtly out of arm's reach, “it’s fine,” he repeats. His friend’s palm falls against the concrete ground in defeat.

“Do you want us to like, set you up or something?” Minghao asks, and Soonyoung almost gags again in the span of 30 seconds, (wow, that should be a world record), “I know this girl who’s got a black line as well and maybe you guys’ll hit it off.”

“Honestly, I’m fine,” he sighs, stubbing his cigarette out with the heel of his shoe, pressing the ashes deep into the concrete, “honestly,” he repeats, again, because Minghao gives him a skeptical look. “Just let me be. I’m fine.”

“Okay, but if you ever need help or anything-” an annoyed twinge shoots through Soonyoung’s chest.

“I don’t have a soulmate, it’s not like I’m fucking handicapped. Why does it matter so much to you guys anyways?” He stands up. He’s somewhat intoxicated, so his vision goes black for a solid 2 seconds and he sways unsteadily, brain sloshing around his skull. “I’m going home.”

Joshua and Wonwoo stand up at the same time. “Soonyoung,” Wonwoo says, but he just waves his friend away.

“I can walk myself.”

With that, he stumbles off, kicking over a can of something on his way, and leaves with a cold feeling in his heart.

 

–

 

His nineteenth birthday is a few weeks after graduation, and it’s probably one of the saddest birthdays he’s had in a long time.

His aunt and mother are on the other side of the world for a business trip. He isn’t talking to his friends yet, because he feels guilty for storming out on them like that and he doesn’t really know what to say – should he apologize? But then it wasn’t his fault, so does he really need to? Should he just go up to them and start a conversation? Wouldn’t that be awkward, though?

So he does what he does best when he’s confused and sad, he sits on his bed, distracting himself from his misery by completely immersing himself in video games. His phone is pinging, the group chat, probably, but he doesn’t move to check it. He hasn’t talked in that group chat in weeks and he’s starting to think that they’ve forgotten he’s even in it.

He doesn’t have sound in because he’s too lazy to get his earphones which are on the other side of the room, so he’s completely ready when he hears it.

A loud crash.

It’s glass, shattering and splintering against a huge impact.

Glass.

Shattering.

He turns around so fast he doesn’t really register what’s happening. On pure impulse, a yell makes its way through his throat and he throws his controller across the room. The force causes him to lose balance, and he topples off his bed, crashing onto the floor.

The controller sails through the open window, narrowly missing the boy standing in front of it.

_The boy._

There’s a _boy_ in his room.

He opens his mouth to yell again, but then their eyes meet, and it’s like his scream gets lodged in his throat.

Because first of all, well, he’s really pretty. He’s small and skinny, and his hair is a mop of bright purple flopping haphazardly across his slanted eyes, bright and dancing with adrenaline from having just crashed through a window. His cheeks are round, but his jawline is cut clean, and Soonyoung admires it subtly as he tilts his head to look around. His skin is porcelain, and he’s wearing some kind of white frock and equally bright and baggy white pants. Overall, he’s so brightly colored he seems to be _glowing_ , almost, in his mess of a dark room.

He’s kind of starstruck. But then the boy opens his mouth, and all his observations seem to fly out the window.

“You took my soulshard.” The words are sharp and cold and clear and Soonyoung raises an eyebrow. This guy breaks into his house and has the nerve to _accuse_ him of something?

“Excuse me?”

“ _You_ took my fucking soulshard,” he repeats.

Soonyoung is at a loss for words. “Um. No?” He manages, wondering why he hasn’t dialed the police yet, because that’s what you do when someone crashes into your window, right?

“I can feel it here,” the boy says, and Soonyoung’s brain starts to wonder if he attracts weird people or something, because just look at his friends, and now this guy rambling about a whatever the fuck while roaming around Soonyoung’s room unsolicited, mumbling something under his breath, “where the fuck did you put it?”

“I’m sorry, who the fuck gave you permission to look around my room?” Soonyoung’s voice is low and comes out more dangerous than intended (not that he’s complaining, really,) and makes the boy’s head snap to him in alarm.

“Look, I’m not looking for any trouble. I just want to take it, and go home. Now, if you’d just cooperate-”

“No,” Soonyoung stands up because honestly what the fuck has he been doing? There’s a guy in his room roaming around and he’s sitting on his bed frozen because he can’t comprehend the situation. A sudden burst of rage rushes to his chest and he stares the boy down. Now that he’s stood up, he realizes how tall he is compared to him, and he steps over to him, his most intimidating glare fixed onto his face, taking care to avoid the glass shards spilling across the floor.

“No,” he repeats, “ _you_ listen. You can’t just break into my house through the window and ask me for something that I’ve never even heard of in my entire life. This is trespassing. This can get you arrested. You’re lucky that I haven’t called the cops yet, they could be hauling your tiny ass off to jail at this very moment.”

A sharp inhale. “Fuck. Let me explain.”

So he does.

“My name is Jihoon,” he starts, cautiously, “and I am a fairy.”

Soonyoung lets out a bark of laughter.

“That’s funny. What else are you going to tell me? That you flew through the street looking for some shard and just randomly hurtled through my window because you had a little inkling of a thought that it was in here without bothering to check if anyone was home or not, with the mindset that you’d just be able to nick it and be gone?”

Jihoon’s face tells him all he needs to know.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m looking for my soul shard,” Jihoon says, “it’s like, purple. Like my hair. I think I’ve forgotten, I haven’t seen it in about three years. Have you seen it?”

“Does it look like I have?”

He is cold and unwavering, so Jihoon lets out an exasperated sigh, gathers up a handful of glass from the floor, and starts to climb out the window, and then, as an afterthought, chucking the shards back in.

Soonyoung’s about to yell at him until he realizes that the shards aren’t falling through. They’re falling into place, reassembling in the window frame and melting together. The glass is perfect, seamless, in one piece. Like nothing had happened at all.

 

–

 

It takes him almost two hours to get over that encounter. He tries to get back into his game but his mind is whirling, trying to comprehend everything that he’d failed to whilst actually living through the situation.

Fairies? A glowing boy with purple hair that can do magic like assembling glass? All the while talking about something called a _soul shard_ which is apparently some kind of encased soul?

He can’t stop thinking about it; can’t stop turning it over in his mind until he resorts to lying on his bed, face down, having some kind of existential crisis.

Is he going mad?

It takes him almost two more hours and a bowl of soggy cereal to persuade himself that he’s being stupid. Maybe his controller got lost whilst he was playing and he didn’t realize, right? Maybe he slipped off his bed and knocked himself out and that’s why he’s thinking of this stupid stuff. Yeah. That’s a plausible explanation. That works.

Maybe his friends always asking him about whether he had a soulmate or not was getting to his head, and now he was imagining these ethereal pretty boys flying into his room because he was so desperate to just find someone to love.

Maybe.

He gets a call from Wonwoo that he’s coming over to play video games. Since the only controller he has out is downstairs and he can’t be fucked to go down and collect it, he has to get up and go over to his drawer to get more.

He’s in the midst of wondering if Wonwoo would prefer the white controller or the black controller when something reflects the light and he almost stops breathing.

Because in the corner of his drawer is that fucking stone that he tripped over on his sixteenth birthday whilst chasing Jeonghan across the grass. Still as clear as he’d remembered, with a dancing speck of purple and pink and white encased in the middle, that he’d shoved in his pocket and completely forgotten about.

Purple. The exact same shade as Jihoon’s hair.

Soonyoung sinks to his knees.

He actually does have it.

So Jihoon _is_ real.

Fuck.

 

–

 

He spends a solid thirty minutes just reading about fairies on Wikipedia.

Apparently no one really knows if they’re real or not, and most of them detail little TinkerBell pixies or hypnotic women or little creatures that fit in your palm.

Okay, well, Jihoon was _kind of_ small, right?

Then he stumbles upon a niche blog from some deep corner of Tumblr and nearly shits himself because the first thing he reads is the word “soulshard”.

 _Soulshard_. He turns the word over and over in his head, testing it out on his lips. It is a folktale, apparently, that when fairies grow older, their souls grow heavier and heavier until they cannot lift themselves up when they fly. In order to keep their souls from weighing them down, they are extracted out of their bodies and placed into a stone for safekeeping.

_That’s so fucking weird._

The doorbell rings and Soonyoung almost falls off his bed again. Muttering curses to himself, he tugs on the hem of his shirt and makes his way towards the door.

“What do you wa-”

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” He is greeted by Wonwoo first, and then sees the huge group of guys behind him and his face breaks into a huge grin. He’d completely forgotten.

“You remembered,” he mumbles, and his friend pushes past him, followed by the rest of the entourage, and Soonyoung can only watch in awe, as Joshua, Minghao, Vernon, Jun, Seokmin and Seungkwan pile into the room. Then he sees Seungcheol and Jeonghan, and immediately throws himself at them in a hug.

“Hi,” Seungcheol laughs, and Jeonghan pats him on the back goodnaturedly.

“I haven’t seen you in three years,” Soonyoung mumbles into his shoulder.

Seungcheol grins, pulling away, “it’s your nineteenth birthday. It’s a special occasion.”

“Our baby is an adult,” Jeonghan teases, and Soonyoung rolls his eyes.

Then he remembers, and pulls away and looks at Minghao and Joshua.

“Guys, I’m sorry-”

“No, you literally don’t have anything to apologize for,” Joshua shakes his head, and just like that, everything is fine.

The rest of the night is filled with laughter and catching up and alcohol, but Soonyoung doesn’t smoke anymore so they’re exempt from that. It’s like his sixteenth birthday, happy and surrounded by friends who love him, and he is overjoyed.

But like all good things that come Soonyoung’s way, they don’t last for long.

 

–

 

It’s not his _friends_ ’ fault, he makes sure they know of that, because he loves them a lot and wants the best for them, so them wanting to spend time with their soulmates over him isn’t their fault, really, it isn’t.

It’s just, Soonyoung wishes sometimes they would just care a little bit more instead of just happily agreeing whenever he willingly dismissed himself so he wouldn’t have to third wheel, but whatever.

His birthday is fun and whatever, but after that, he starts to become lonely, and he starts to become sad.

His aunt suggests a job, so he gets one, part time, at a coffee shop just to have something to do apart from wallowing in his room playing video games all the time. As much fun as being Diamond II in League of Legends is, he doesn’t really feel like spending his entire gap year sitting in front of his PC. His coworker is a cute, clumsy guy named Mingyu who likes to cook but talks more than he does anything else, and he’s starting to think he has a friend or whatever until Wonwoo comes to visit him 2 months into the job.

They make eye contact across the counter, and Soonyoung just _knows_.

It’s not as comical as Joshua and Vernon, and not as spontaneous as Seokmin and Seungkwan, but their eyes meet across the counter and Mingyu’s face blooms into the brightest smile Soonyoung’s ever seen.

“Hi,” his best friend says, and he almost gags at how lovestruck his voice sounds.

“Hey,” Mingyu is charming to customers but this is on another level. He feels like upchucking his breakfast but he likes both of them too much to do so.

Wonwoo opens his mouth to say something, but then catches Soonyoung’s gaze apologetically. “I-”

“I’ll cover,” he cuts in, and he has no idea why he says these things, “just have him back to close up.”

He knows they won’t be back to close up.

The huge, blinding grin (sharp canines and all) Mingyu flashes him and the overjoyed expression on Wonwoo’s face is worth it, though.

“Thanks,” they chorus, and Mingyu even gives him a hug.

He decides to give them the benefit of the doubt. Wonwoo has never disappointed him before. He trusts Wonwoo. Right?

He’s still holding onto this shred of hope when he closes the shop alone that night.

 

–

 

He is depressed.

That’s what his aunt tells him after he calls her for advice about it (yes, he’s now resorted to seeking help from his aunt), and she sends him a few kissy emojis understandingly, but doesn’t really say much.

“It comes from a deep-rooted sense of insignificance,” she tells him in a matter of fact tone, and it takes _so much_ within him to not roll his eyes, “because it seems like everyone has someone for them apart from you.” He almost scoffs, because she’s doing that thing where she thinks she’s philosophical again and spouts a load of random bullshit that she probably read off Buzzfeed or some guru website for middle aged women.

The worst part of this is, she’s probably right.

The realization only makes it worse. He spends his days either at home or at the coffee shop working more hours than he’s asked to (because he has nothing else to do with his life, honestly) and googling how much professional League players earn (because that’s going to be the only thing he can do at this rate). He doesn’t think he’s ever wished a year would go by faster.

_Why does he suddenly have so much time?_

_Well,_ he reminds himself, rolling his eyes, _you decided to take a gap year. Idiot._

In the meantime, he falls into a slump so bad that even Mingyu notices, and tries to ask him what’s wrong.

“Are you okay? You’ve been so uncharacteristically quiet over the past few days,” he pats Soonyoung on the back and he fights the urge to shake him off. _Come on, Soon. He’s just trying to be nice._

He continues, “I don’t mean to pry, but is it because you don’t have a soulmate? Wonwoo told me some stuff about it, and-” _what the fuck_ . Soonyoung growls, literally _growls_ , and pushes him off.

Mingyu sighs and leaves him alone.

It’s like this for the rest of the week, until Sunday comes.

The sun is bright and warm, and seems like it’s trying its best to cast a happy glow on everything it touches. Somehow, that worms its way into Soonyoung’s heart, and he goes to work with a bounce in his step.

Him and Mingyu usually share the front counter, but because he’s so mopey lately his boss confines him to the kitchen and the storage room. Today he’s not here, so Mingyu is pleasantly surprised when Soonyoung offers to take the first shift of the cashier.

“You know what to do?” He asks, and Soonyoung nods, so he happily retreats to the back to make cakes.

He makes Mingyu take the next cashier shift though, because human interaction is still difficult, and he settles besides him and starts to doodle on coffee cups.

The shop is busy this afternoon, so because he decided to stay outside he’s thrown into making coffee and reheating cakes. There’s a reason they make him and Mingyu man the counter however, because they’re a whir of limbs, working quickly and quietly in well rehearsed harmony, and Soonyoung feels good because he’s finally working in something he’s comfortable in.

3 pm hits and the shop goes into somewhat of a lull. He starts to roast coffee beans absentmindedly, finishing up one of his doodles while Mingyu sorts the change.

Suddenly, the jangle of the doorbell pulls him out of his reverie, which is kind of weird because it hasn’t caught his attention this much in 3 hours, but maybe that’s because he’s been busy.

And then he notices who’s just walked into the shop and _no, it’s not just because of that._

Bright purple hair, porcelain skin, sparkling eyes, fixated _straight_ on Soonyoung. His chest flutters, and he can’t tell whether it’s nerves or something else entirely.

For his own sake, he settles for the former.

Jihoon looks cuter today, if that’s even possible. The summer sun is sweltering outside, so bright that 30 seconds in it would probably turn Soonyoung into a tomato, but Jihoon wears it like an accessory. It glints off his skin just the right amount, encasing him in an airy sheen of light. He’s wearing normal clothes this time (thank god), and he blinks at Soonyoung with a face of the utmost confusion.

 _Oh no_ , Soonyoung thinks, _I’ve been caught_.

But then Jihoon’s face settles into a small, peaceful smile, and he raises his hand in greeting.

The jitters crawling up Soonyoung’s chest intensity, but he somehow manages to wave back.

After he orders (a chocolate croissant and a cappuccino), Mingyu turns to him with an excited look on his face. “Hey, you know him?” Soonyoung nods slowly.

“I guess,” he mumbles, and the taller boy shoots him a weird look which is quickly replaced by one filled with optimism.

“You know, you should go out with him,” he says nonchalantly, and Soonyoung whips his head around in surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“No,” Mingyu hastens, “as friends, I mean. You’ve been so down this week and, you know, friends bring happiness and all that.”

He starts to protest, but Mingyu hasn’t decided to go into marketing for nothing. A few minutes later, Jihoon sits down at a booth by himself. He is halfway through his croissant when, despite Soonyoung’s futile attempts at resisting, he finds himself sliding into the chair across, giving Jihoon an awkward smile.

The fairy looks up at him with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Um. Hello?”

“Hi,” _is this how you make friends?_

“Are you here to arrest me or something?” A wry smile plays with the corner of his lips and Soonyoung very visibly relaxes when he realizes he’s joking, which causes a short bout of laughter to fall from Jihoon’s lips.

“I mean, maybe.”

“Sorry for that, by the way,” he mumbles sheepishly, “I didn’t realize. I don’t know. I was flustered and stupid and they usually don’t let fairies out and stuff so I had to hurry. I didn’t know what I was getting into.” His cheeks flush a dark pink and this almost warms Soonyoung’s heart.

“Don’t worry about it,” Soonyoung finds himself saying, “it’s fine,” because it is, honestly. “I’m lonely, anyways. I don’t really mind anyone crashing into my room to hang out sometimes.” That earns a laugh from both of them, and the smile stays on Jihoon’s face. He has dimples, Soonyoung realizes, and resists the urge to poke them as his grin deepens.

Okay. Great. Yet another adorable thing about him that Soonyoung has to pretend not to admire.

Jihoon bites into his croissant and grins at Soonyoung again.

_This fucking guy._

“Good?”

“Yeah,” Jihoon says through a mouthful, “best.”

“Mingyu makes them,” he nods towards the cashier. “He’s good at baking.”

“Then what’s he doing manning the front counter?”

“He’s good at baking, but he talks so much they kick him out of the kitchen.” Jihoon laughs, silent this time, head thrown back, and Soonyoung feels a fond grin worm its way onto its face. He feels eyes on his back, and meets Mingyu’s eyes. The boy grins at him and he smiles back. _‘Go somewhere,’_ he mouths.

“Hey,” Soonyoung says as Jihoon polishes off the last bits of his croissant.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

“Don’t you have to work?” Jihoon says it loud enough for Mingyu at the counter to hear, effectively snapping him out of his daydream.

Mingyu shrugs, “I’ll cover. You did it for me last time so I owe you one.”

Soonyoung grins, running over and throwing his arms around him in a hug, and then running out the door after Jihoon.

“So,” he glances at Soonyoung, sparkling eyes betraying his excitement, “where to?”

 

–

 

Turns out Jihoon hasn’t been _anywhere_ , which is astounding to Soonyoung. Despite the fact that he could literally go anywhere and probably still amaze Jihoon (yeah Soonyoung, bring your new friend on a dumpster date, he chides himself), Soonyoung found himself wanting desperately to impress him all the same.

He turns to the shorter boy and says the first thing that comes to mind.

“Do you want to go on a food tour?”

Jihoon’s eyes brighten. “ _Do_ I?”

And that’s how they find themselves in a park after raiding the nearest market, hands full of steaming tteokbokki, tofu cubes, kimbap and different types of noodles.

“This is good,” Jihoon says through a mouthful of tofu, and Soonyoung nods.

“Try this,” he offers Jihoon a mouthful of the thing he’s eating - red noodles that he’d tentatively introduced as jjambbong - and Jihoon chomps down eagerly. Soonyoung shamelessly watches as his lips close around his chopsticks and almost imagines his lips closing around- _no_.

His cheeks are flaming the same color as the noodles and he stuffs a mouthful into his own mouth so that he has an excuse if Jihoon notices. His mouth starts to burn and he accepts it happily.

“Oh by the way,” he adds as an afterthought, “you can handle spice, right?”

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone’s eyes widen so dramatically within the span of 1 second.

Well, fuck.

Jihoon’s face grows red in panic; the calm before a storm. Soonyoung shoves him an open bottle of water, and he manages to chug about half of it before he starts to cough.

“Fuck,” Soonyoung mumbles, “fuck fuck fuck.” Jihoon doubles over coughing, and he starts to panic. _Good going, Soonyoung, you managed to kill him on your first hangout._

“Uh,” he jumps up and grabs his wallet, “I’ll be right back.” and he runs off towards the market, away from his problems.

One entire lap around the market later, he comes up empty and finds Jihoon back at the park, most of the containers open, exactly half of each item left unfinished, all except for the jjambbong.

“Where did you go?” He asks through a mouthful of kimbap, and Soonyoung flushes.

“To get you milk.”

Jihoon laughs, falling onto the floor of the playground, mouth open and shoulders shaking silently. “Soonyoung, it’s fine, I have magi- I mean, I’ll get over it.”

“Oh.” Soonyoung doesn’t know what to make of that. Is he supposed to just pretend he didn’t hear that, or? He settles for just letting it go. “Great, so I guess you don’t mind eating the rest of-”

“NO!” He yells, immediately sitting up, “NO WAY.”

Soonyoung laughs and happily finishes the rest of the noodles, grinning widely at Jihoon’s incredulous glances throughout.

 

–

 

Somehow they manage to hang out until dinner time, walking around and talking about anything and everything, but despite the restaurants around them filling with people, they can’t bring themselves to eat anything.

Jihoon is surprisingly easy to talk to, and being with him makes Soonyoung feel lighter than he’s been in a long time.

So when it’s time for him to go back and help close up shop (because he knows what it feels like to have to close up by yourself, it’s hell), he almost doesn’t want to leave.

They’re standing on the corner between the street that the coffee shop is on and the park that they’d just come from. It’s an intersection, and briefly Soonyoung ponders lying about forgetting which way is which just so that he’d be able to stay with Jihoon for longer

 _You made a promise_ , no, technically he didn’t, _but you know how it feels to have someone leave you to pack up by himself_. That, he does. So he sighs and steels himself to say goodbye.

“Sorry for almost killing you,” is the first thing that slips out, and Jihoon laughs.

He’s noticed how nice Jihoon’s laugh is before (heck, he’s been hearing it all day), but now he really _hears_ it. It’s light and bubbly, and stretches his lips above his perfectly aligned teeth, mouth slightly ajar, seemingly rocking his entire body. His eyes squeeze into crescents and Soonyoung swoons, but only a little. (Only a little, so it’s okay.)

“It’s fine,” Jihoon grins, and _those dimples_ appear again, and this time Soonyoung can’t resist the urge to poke them, so he pokes one of them - sticks a finger into his left one.

They freeze for a second, Soonyoung’s finger in Jihoon’s dimple, and Soonyoung wonders if he’s crossed a line or done something wrong and he opens his mouth to apologize again.

But then Jihoon starts laughing, and so does Soonyoung.

Two boys, standing on the corner of the sidewalk, across a busy intersection, the orange streetlight casting warm shadows across their face and onto the pavement, one with wild purple hair, one trying desperately to grow out the blonde, damaged mess he’d spontaneously tried out in his last year of high school.

They’re laughing carelessly, heads thrown back and eyes squeezed shut. To any car that passes by, they would look like the picture perfect definition of happiness.

It’s been a while since Soonyoung, or anyone else around him for that matter, has associated him with anything even _close_ to happiness.

So he’s laughing, but then at the same time he’s appreciating the boy across him, the little, purple boy who he met because he crashed into his window one day, and wonders what’s different about him that managed to crack his shell.

(He allows himself to wonder if this is what soulmates feel like.)

Eventually, they stop laughing, and Soonyoung hesitates before pulling Jihoon into a hug. “Bye,” they grin at each other and he watches Jihoon walk off until he turns the corner and disappears.

The other boy disappears from his line of sight and he feels his cheeks relax. They are aching from all the smiling and laughing he’s not used to and he starts to massage them before he realizes he’s laughed more today than he’s done in the past 3 years.

A warmth blooms in his stomach and as another smile makes its way onto his face.

Maybe, he could get used to this.

 

–

 

Jihoon starts showing up at the coffee shop a lot more and Soonyoung starts to feel like he’s in one of those fanfictions he reads religiously where the love interest comes and picks the main character off from work after their shifts.

He pretty much is, to be honest.

He starts working his regular hours again, which is good for him because he finally gets to relax, and for Mingyu as well because he’s allowed to work in the kitchen again, which is what he really likes to do instead of manning the cashier.

In the time that he gets off, he spends it with Jihoon.

“Don’t you have anything to do?” Soonyoung asks him one day, and Jihoon shrugs.

“I’m a fairy. What can I do?”

“Then,” Soonyoung hesitates, and Jihoon cocks an eyebrow which prompts him to continue, “where do you get your money?”

The boy sends him a sly smirk, and a cheeky wink that goes straight to Soonyoung’s heart. “I have my sources.”

“That sounds _so_ creepy.”

Jihoon flushes, “well, maybe if you didn’t _think_ of it like that...”

He loves spending time with Jihoon - he _relishes_ in it. When he’s with Jihoon, it’s like he’s in an alternate universe, as cliche as it is, because it seems like suddenly, everything is fine and dandy and he doesn’t have a care in the world.

(He tries not to think about what might happen if it stops.)

 

–

 

It’s a particularly horrible day at work. Everyone that comes in seems to be rude or annoying or takes 50 years to order, and because of this Soonyoung is stressed and keeps forgetting how to make coffee and heat up cakes, to the annoyance of his boss and his coworkers.

They are packed to the brim, which would usually be a good thing and serve as motivation, getting everyone’s spirits high, but today it’s just exhausting.

Work drags on way too long, and when his shift ends and he sees that familiar head of purple hair through the crowd of customers, he sprints to the back, barely stopping to yell goodbye to his boss and Mingyu in the kitchen before practically flying out and nearly crashing into Jihoon in his rush.

“You seem excited,” he teases, and Soonyoung scoffs, grabbing his arm and leading him outside.

“More like desperate to leave.” Jihoon cackles and he starts to lead him down the street to no place in particular.

“Where are we off to today?” And suddenly, Soonyoung knows the perfect place to go.

“Let me take you somewhere,” he finds himself saying, eyes flattening into happy crescents. Jihoon smiles, fingers interlocking with Soonyoung’s. They’re cold, but then Soonyoung is always way too warm for his own good, so the temperature is comfortable and inviting.

“Let’s go,” Jihoon says, and he forgets what Jihoon’s talking about for a moment because he just _held his hand_ , and his eyes look _so warm_ and he wants to drown in them forever and forever and- he blinks, snapping out of it, and nods, continuing to lead Jihoon down the street.

Soonyoung takes him on the bus this time, which is slightly different because they usually take the train or just walk, and he knows the prospect of just being on a new vehicle will excite Jihoon, so he takes the time to point out landmarks and different places that he has particular memories with. He raises his hand to point at something, accidentally blocking Jihoon’s view, and he grabs Soonyoung’s hand to lower it from his line of sight. Their hands drop into Jihoon’s lap, but he doesn’t pull away, and Jihoon doesn’t let go.

He doesn’t know what Jihoon’s deal with holding hands is all of a sudden, but he isn’t really complaining. Soonyoung continues talking with a slight stutter, and the fairy smiles fondly at him while he talks, fingers playing with Soonyoung’s hand in his lap.

They get off at a station next to a cliff, and Soonyoung takes his hand and leads him straight up. The top of the cliff is an open clearing that shows the wide expanse of city below them, and as soon as Jihoon sees it, his eyes widen in awe.

“I came here for my sixteenth birthday,” Soonyoung’s voice is soft and scratchy and he coughs, trying to clear his throat, “I haven’t been here since.”

They sit down on the grass cross legged, facing each other. Only now, he’s not surrounded by his friends and cigarettes and alcohol and whatever other crap his sixteen year old self decided would be great to wreck his body with. He’s with Jihoon, and suddenly this place seems way more important.

The fairy hums in acknowledgement and Soonyoung lifts his gaze from where he’d absentmindedly grabbed Jihoon’s hands and started playing with his fingers.

Jihoon is looking at Soonyoung with a fond expression; eyes half closed and a stupid half smile on his face that makes Soonyoung’s heart stutter. The moonlight makes him look so fucking pretty; casting soft shadows onto his skin that make him look like he’s glowing ( _again_ ! This must be some kind of fairy thing, because Soonyoung can’t comprehend how someone can look so _ethereal_ just _all the fucking time_ ). The night breeze pushes his hair into his face and he flicks it away, revealing eyes bright and glittering. They meet Soonyoung’s and he feels fireworks in his chest.

Holy shit, this boy is actually fucking magic.

“You have pretty fingers,” is all he can manage, and Jihoon laughs, a short, sweet sound that slices through the heavy hush of the night.

They _are_ pretty; pale, like the rest of him, but with slightly rosy tips. Long, graceful and slender. Hands of a musician? Soonyoung wonders if Jihoon plays any instruments. He seems like the type of guy to be good at all of them.

“I’ve been told.”

“I’m glad.”

“I played the piano,” he mumbles, looking down at his palms.

“Played?”

“I stopped,” he sighs, “my parents told me it was too girly.”

“That’s bull,” Soonyoung scoffs, and a surge of protectiveness appears in his throat — this is his fairy and he deserves everything in the fucking world.

“Right?” Jihoon shrugs, “they made Chan stop doing ballet as well so they probably just like to watch their children suffer, really,” Soonyoung must’ve had a confused look on his face because he rushes to clarify, “Chan, my half brother. He’s like, sixteen. A baby.”

“That’s cute.”

“He’s fucking adorable, you’d like him.”

Soonyoung smiles, “I’d like to meet him.”

A flash of pain surges through Jihoon’s eyes for a split second, but his eyes squeeze shut in a wide grin and the emotion is gone. “I’d love that.”

They fall silent for a moment, and Soonyoung takes the opportunity to run his fingers along the smooth skin of Jihoon’s hands.

When he looks up, Jihoon’s face is close to his and his eyes are dark and filled with some emotion that Soonyoung can’t quite place.

It makes him forget to breathe.

He can feel warm breath from Jihoon's lips hitting his skin and he takes his hands, interlocking their fingers.

A beat passes. Then two.

Soonyoung grins, breaking eye contact and falling back onto the grass.

“It’s a pretty night,” he muses. The stars scatter the night sky; glitter on a black velvet canvas, and a few moments later Jihoon joins him.

“Yeah,” Jihoon says, but there’s a disappointed twinge, and Soonyoung wonders why. He turns to the boy to question, but his face is turned away, pointedly staring out into the city.

 _It’s probably because it’s really pretty,_ Soonyoung thinks, and he lets it go.

He doesn’t realize something’s wrong until for the first time ever, Jihoon says he has to leave first.

“You know, my parents might get worried and stuff,” he reasons. Soonyoung doesn’t know when Jihoon’s parents started getting worried because they weren’t when Jihoon stayed out with him way past midnight just the other day, but he sighs and decides not to pry, instead pulling him into a goodbye hug.

Jihoon stiffens under his touch, and if Soonyoung hadn’t realized something was wrong, he sure does now. But before he has any chance to ask, Jihoon’s already slipping out of his grasp and disappearing around the corner into the dark.

Fuck.

He goes back to the shop, and Wonwoo is there, sitting on the counter while Mingyu sorts out the change.

“Hey Soon,” he grins, “how was Jihoon?”

“It was alright, I guess,” Soonyoung sighs, ”I think he’s mad at me though.”

“What makes you think that?” Mingyu asks, looking up from the stack of twenty dollar bills within his palm, and Soonyoung shrugs in response.

“I don’t know, like, he was really cold and stuff, I think I did something.”

“Call him and ask him about it?” Mingyu offers, and Wonwoo cuts in.

“No,” he rolls his eyes, “he doesn’t have Jihoon’s number.”

“Why wouldn’t you have Jihoon’s number?”

“I see him all the time, why would I need his number?“ Soonyoung scoffs.

Wonwoo sighs. “Jihoon doesn’t have a phone.”

“Who the fuck doesn’t have a _phone_?”

“Jihoon,” Wonwoo and Soonyoung chorus, and Mingyu raises his eyebrows in amusement.

“We’ll talk later. First we have to close up shop.”

He throws Soonyoung and Wonwoo rags and Soonyoung catches it, but Wonwoo isn’t so lucky and it smacks him in the face.

“Sorry!” Mingyu grins, and leans across the counter to kiss his boyfriend.

The little smile on Mingyu’s face before they kiss looks familiar for some reason, and then it hits him like a ton of bricks.

 _Jihoon_ was trying to _kiss_ him. And Soonyoung had dismissed it as if it was nothing.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, “I’m so stupid. He was trying to _kiss_ me.” He thumps his head down onto the counter, and Wonwoo pats him on the back sympathetically.

“I’m glad you realize.” Soonyoung turns around and whacks him on the head and he only laughs.

“Don’t listen to him,” Mingyu aims a kick at his boyfriend, “if he really likes you, you’ll both get another chance.”

Soonyoung hasn’t crossed his fingers since 2nd grade, but that night as he walks home, Mingyu’s words ringing in his head, he shoves his hands into his pockets and crosses his fingers. And he won’t admit it, but within his socks he crosses his toes too, just for good measure.

 

-

 

It is impossibly hot today, and even more so in the storage room of the shop, which is where the boss decided to confine Soonyoung and Mingyu to today, because, quote on quote, they're "strong boys", and the "cardboard boxes aren't going to move themselves". Beads of sweat drip down the sides of Soonyoung’s face as he heaves yet another cardboard box onto the metal shelf that looks seconds away from crumpling under the weight, and beside him, Mingyu lets out a frustrated grunt as he heaves one onto the top shelf.

"What if a surprise party is too much? What if he doesn't like it?" He asks for the seventeenth time in the past hour and Soonyoung sighs.

"If you do it for him, he'll love it," he assures, and Mingyu takes another box from Soonyoung to hide the flush on his face.

They’re talking about Wonwoo, more specifically, what Mingyu should do for Wonwoo’s birthday. That response must've satiated Mingyu's questions _for now_ , because he turns to Soonyoung and asks a question that kind of takes him aback.

“How about Jihoon? You never talk to me about him,” Mingyu glances at his friend hopefully, “how’s he like? Is he nice?”

“Yeah," Soonyoung says, kind of distracted by the label he's trying to read, but also distracted because he's not used to talking about Jihoon with Mingyu for some reason, those feelings are reserved for the 3am text conversations he has with Joshua, "he’s nice.”

“He comes here really often, does he live around here?”

Soonyoung opens his mouth to respond, but it suddenly hits him that he _doesn’t actually know_.

He knows about _him_ , yes, his personality, what he likes to eat (jajangmyeon), his favorite drink (boba), and that when he drinks it he has to have one bubble in each cheek so he chews _equally_ , but really, if he thinks about it, he doesn’t know anything else.

He doesn’t know anything about Jihoon’s family, only the fact that he has a younger brother named Chan. He doesn’t know where Jihoon lives, if he even lives on this planet to begin with. He doesn’t know anything about Jihoon’s magic apart from the fact that he can fly and he can solidify glass.

Heck, he doesn’t even know Jihoon’s last name.

“I'm not sure,” Soonyoung says quietly, and if there’s anything Mingyu’s really good at, it’s sensing when Soonyoung doesn’t want to talk about something. He utters a definitive “okay” and launches into an entire story about that one time he went to the public pool with Wonwoo.

The thought doesn’t leave his brain until he sees Jihoon the next day. Soonyoung’s on his lunch break and relieved that Jihoon actually showed up. His head is spinning, so he decides to bring it up. Jihoon’s face seems to fall a little, but he still shrugs and sits up straight, steadying himself to answer.

“What do you want to know?” He is patient and not unkind, but there is a slight anxiety to it that makes Soonyoung’s gut start to twist in guilt.

“Like, you know, general stuff,” Soonyoung chews on his bottom lip in thought and watches as Jihoon’s eyes snap to it, and then snap back up immediately, a sheepish flush gracing his cheeks.

“You know me, don’t you?” His voice is soft and strained, “isn’t that enough?”

“Yeah, but,” Soonyoung gulps, “I want to know more about you, because I care about you.”

Jihoon blushes again, head falling to hide himself with his lavender bangs. “Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know,” Soonyoung throws an arm in the air in a futile attempt to bring words to his mouth, “maybe, like, tell me about your family? Where you live? Tell me about your magic and stuff. How life is as a fairy. You know, that kind of stuff.”

At this, he seems to curl up into himself, so little it's almost imperceptible to the human eye, and the guilt. When he speaks, it's so quiet Soonyoung almost has to strain to hear him. “I don’t even know, myself.”

“What do you mean?” Soonyoung offers a reassuring hand and Jihoon takes it gratefully, bony fingers slipping in between his thicker ones, thumbs running over his palms and the back of his hand.

He looks so conflicted half of Soonyoung wants to shut him up and tell him that it's fine, he doesn't have to say anything, but the words continue rolling, like he's been keeping them in for a long time. He speaks quickly and quietly, like he swallowed something gross and wants to just get it all out of his mouth. "My family is fucked up. I can't tell you where I live because of some stupid sacred fairy pact. I shouldn't even be here with you because of some secret fairy pact. I can't tell you about my magic, because you shouldn't know about it. I don't know why I'm doing this, even. I just know that," his breath hitches and Soonyoung squeezes his hand, "I'm here because I like you. I like being with you. You know?"

Soonyoung's brain whirls and all he can do is blink. "What?"

"I don't know," he drops his head, and Soonyoung's heart hurts. "You don't have to like me back or anything," he mumbles, and Soonyoung decides to take matters into his own hands.

He leans forward, maintaining eye contact, and Jihoon gives him a weird look before he realizes and laughs, placing his hands on either side of Soonyoung's cheeks and pressing their lips together.

Jihoon's lips are a little chapped but soft all the same, and they taste like boba and marshmallows and something else sweet he can't place, and the nerves in his stomach ball up and squeeze together so tightly he almost squirms.

There aren't butterflies or fireworks, like stories and books, but a sudden peace spreads through him like a dip in a serene pond on a warm summer day, like falling into clean sheets after a long day, like slotting the last piece in a 1000 piece puzzle. It just feels _right_ , like his world had been out of kilter and Jihoon's lips against his had somehow dragged it back upright.

Jihoon starts to pull away, but Soonyoung grabs the back of his neck and kisses him again, and he feels the boy melt into the kiss across the table.

He tries to shift closer, but the movement knocks over Jihoon’s empty drink and they pull away, laughing.

"How about you?" Jihoon asks. His voice is like pillows, soft and fluffy, and Soonyoung wants to sink deep into it and never resurface, "you don't have to tell me anything, but I'm not blind, you know."

"I haven't told anyone before," Soonyoung hears himself saying.

"Will you tell me?"

He hesitates.

"I stopped believing in soulmates with I was six," he starts, and suddenly there are words flowing out of him that he'd compressed so deep within him that he'd forgotten they were there to begin with.

He tells him everything he's compressed for ten years, and Jihoon listens carefully and quietly, squeezing his hand at just the right parts, feet interlocking with his under the table, and he feels a heavy weight lift off his chest.

He doesn’t realize he’s started crying until Jihoon’s face screws up and he presses the pad of his thumb to Soonyoung’s wet cheek.

At that one touch, he feels himself break, and then suddenly he’s sobbing harder into his palms than he ever has been before.

“Fuck, oh my god,” he hears Jihoon say, and then he’s being gathered up into a pair of arms and he sinks gratefully into the embrace, entire body trembling like an earthquake.

Jihoon pays for his meal and manages to drag Soonyoung outside onto the concrete floor, before he mumbles, “fuck it,” and they’re both engulfed in a flash of light that Soonyoung is too busy crying to register.

They appear within Soonyoung’s room, him still cradled within Jihoon’s arms, and Jihoon carefully sets him on the bed.

“I’ll stay for a while, but then I have to go,” he mumbles, fingers carding through Soonyoung’s hair and wiping his wet cheeks, but Soonyoung lets out a sound of protest that makes Jihoon’s expression soften.

“Stay with me,” he hiccups, and that’s all it takes for Jihoon to climb into the bed next to him and settle within his open arms.

He drifts off to sleep with Jihoon in his arms, soft hair pressing against his face, warm body pressed against his. Right before he slips off into sweet slumber, he feels Jihoon shift closer, and a pair of soft lips land against his forehead. His heart tightens, and he holds Jihoon tight.

He doesn’t expect to wake up alone.

When he does, opens his eyes to the bright light of the morning streaming through his sheer curtains and reaches out only to feel cold sheets, suddenly he feels way too tired - his entire body seemingly wrung of its fluids through all the tears he’d shed, and way too lonely - his heart feels open and vulnerable and stripped of his skin.

He misses Jihoon. The bed feels way too big to be sleeping in all by himself, and he wraps his blanket tightly himself to try to replicate the warmth of the boy next to him a few hours ago, but his heart feels light, like it’s been clotted with grey clouds all along and now they’ve cleared and he can finally see the sun.

He feels like he’s finally been able to let go.

 

-

 

_Kwon Soonyoung stops believing in soulmates on his sixth birthday, exactly 10 years until he would’ve gotten his soulmate mark._

_He’d grown up with his mother and his father, a happy little family in a simple little apartment._

_It wasn’t much, but it was enough._

_At that point, he’d grown used to spending his life in between two sets of arms, marked with identical soulmate marks, and he’d grown used to listening to their stories before he drifted off to sleep; stories about soulmates and fate and meeting and love. Pure, mind-numbing, absolute, undying love._

_He’d drifted off into a sleep so sweet that he never heard the yelling, never heard the arguments, never heard the rough strikes of skin against skin, never heard the glass bottles shatter, never heard the doors slam so hard they shook the apartment building to its core._

_He’d never heard any of them._

_Until it was too late._

 

_–_

 

_It is his sixth birthday, and he’s going home with his aunt, a strawberry ice lolly melting in his mouth as a reward of that easy spelling test that he completely aced._

_He’s_ so _looking forward to that strawberry cake he just_ knows _his mum has for him and he’s looking forward to unwrapping his gifts. His parents are_ mean _gift givers._

_He’s been wanting a HotWheels car park for a while now. He really hopes he gets one. Really, really._

_The rain is hammering above them, and he is skipping happily under her black umbrella, occasionally pausing to jump over a puddle or to splash through one, which always manages to earn him a scolding._

_(Not that he really cares.)_

_He’s busy telling his aunt about the awesome game of football they had in PE today when they hear it._

_A scream, followed by many others. To a little Soonyoung, it promises violence, and that’s what makes him cower into his aunt while she grabs his hands and holds them tight._

_They’re standing outside the apartment building, directly underneath the window of the living room of Soonyoung’s apartment, and his aunt immediately looks towards it, which is when he fully starts to comprehend that something is wrong._

_“What’s wrong?” He asks her, walking towards the door of the apartment building, and his aunt’s grip tightens so much it starts to hurt. “What are you doing?” His voice is wobbly and suddenly his stomach hurts and he doesn’t want to eat his ice lolly anymore._

_A crash._

_It is a clink and a smash and a shatter all at once. Some part of it is glass, he thinks, and he can imagine a clean sheet exploding into little fragments, little shards that scatter all over the floor. It is loud, so loud the entire apartment building seems to sway in its wake; a thinly rooted tree caving under the pressure of a hurricane._

_Glass specks drip to the floor in front of him and little Soonyoung gathers the courage to look up._

_His window is shattered. Completely, irrevocably, jagged edges lining the metal frame._

_The screams continue. This time, they are clear as day. His parents’ voices yelling, vibrating into his eardrums._

_“Auntie,” he says, clutching his stomach, tears starting to drip down his cheeks, “I want to go home.”_

_“Soonie,” she mumbles, and she looks at him and he realizes he’s never seen her scared, so scared, in his entire life, and he starts crying harder._

_“Auntie-”_

_The door of the apartment complex slams open and his father stomps out, yelling and gesturing. He’s wearing his work clothes but they are stained with water, and some other dark substance he can’t to identify. They watch as his mother follows, running and stumbling over her flip flops, ugly dark tears staining her face with mascara. His father reaches into the car parked in front of the complex – his work car, and his mother grabs his shoulder, but he shakes her off so hard she falls to the concrete._

_Her palms leave red marks on the grey floor and she tries to get up but he kicks her to the ground again, and Soonyoung realizes too late what the dark substance is._

_He wants to yell for her. He wants to run up and make sure she is okay, but he is shaking, and crying harder than he’d ever been before. His legs are weak but his aunt’s arms hold him up and keep him standing._

_“Soonyoung, we should go,” she says, but she is so far away, and he is here, he is in the present, and he is watching his parents’ relationship fall apart._

_His father’s hand reemerges with a pocket knife he always kept in his briefcase for emergencies. He flicks open the blade and his aunt tries to cover his eyes with her hand but she’s too late._

_One slash is all it takes for his father to cut his own soulmate mark open._

_Red blood splatters to the concrete, and his mother howls in agony. His aunt drops him then, rushing over to her and gathering his mother up in her arms as the car pulls away._

_Soonyoung collapses to the ground, unable to move, unable to speak. He is shaking still, uncontrollably so, and he is crying so hard he feels lightheaded. He faintly registers his mother calling his name, and he cries harder, feeling himself melt into the cold pavement._

_And then everything is still._

 

_–_

 

_He passes out on the concrete. His aunt picks him up and puts him in her car, and the next thing he knows he’s waking up in the backseat, curled up in a ball, head spinning and limbs weak and heavy._

_He has a pocket knife too. His father gave it to him on his fifth birthday with a promise to teach him how to use it._

_Not anymore._

_Soonyoung opens the window, and the knife slips out of his fingers onto the open road._

_He watches the knife get crushed by an oncoming car. and along with it, Soonyoung’s 6 year old heart._

 

-

 

He doesn’t see Jihoon for a long time after that. The boy doesn’t show up to the coffee shop for an entire week and Soonyoung starts to miss him so much his heart beats a black hole in his chest.   
  
The first few days he tries to convince himself that it’s because Jihoon’s busy or something. Maybe he was right, maybe his parents really did get strict, and maybe he got grounded. Maybe he was just caught up with something, and he’d be back soon.   
  
The more time starts to pass, the more his optimism starts to fade, and the harder it becomes to pretend nothing’s wrong. He continues to be bright and cheery when he mans the cashier, but as soon as he’s allowed to go back into the kitchen, he slumps over the desk, head hung and tears prickling at the back of his eyes.   
  
What kind of a boy leaves you after you give them your entire heart?   
  
His coworkers notice something’s wrong, but Soonyoung’s trying so hard not to let himself collapse that they settle for pretending not to notice. They keep pretending not to notice as he stops doodling on coffee cups, stops looking up when the door chimes, stops rushing home after work, but they all know something’s wrong. It’s just that whenever they bring it up, Soonyoung gets annoyed and angry and defensive.   
  
Even he knows it, but he can’t bring himself to give much of a fuck, really. All he can think about is Jihoon. All he cares about is Jihoon. Nothing else, nothing more.   
  
Sometimes, he wonders if telling Jihoon was the thing that scared him away.   
  
The thought first pops up in his head during work, and he straight collapses in the storage room of the coffee shop, head in his hands, breath rushing out through his lips in fast, erratic puffs. He doesn’t know how long it lasts for but his boss finds him on the floor unmoving, and sends him home with a worried look on his face, and an order to stay at home until he feels better.   
  
Soonyoung doesn’t know if that’s possible.   
  
He stays at home everyday, lounging on the couch and watching TV until his eyes burn and he passes out only to be startled awake by an occasional loud noise, and then he opens his eyes and watches with his eyes but not his heart, until he passes out again.   
  
Nights are reserved for talks with Joshua and sometimes Vernon, crying his heart out into the receiver, and the boy consoles him as best as he can until he passes out, then Soonyoung buries himself in his pillows, staring emotionlessly into his room until the first rays of sunlight stream through the cracks of the curtains, and he slips into an unsettling slumber.   
  
Mingyu starts to call and text him more, and by the second day of “you can tell me what’s wrong, I won’t judge you,” the eggshell keeping Soonyoung from facing reality cracks and spills, and Mingyu listens and understands.   
  
He shows up at Soonyoung’s house with Wonwoo and microwaveable popcorn the next day, and they watch funny Netflix shows while Soonyoung pretends to not be shedding tears into the popcorn. They all pass out on the couch together after that, though, and Soonyoung falls asleep before sunrise for the first time since Jihoon up and left.   
  
A painful month passes, and Soonyoung’s heart never stops yearning for Jihoon, but because of his friends, he pretends.   
  
And after pretending, he almost starts to believe that it’s real.   
  
  
  
–   
  


 

It’s a cloudy day, and Soonyoung feels particularly like shit, so he picks up his phone and decides to call his mum. She picks up, voice warm and happy, and Soonyoung feels his entire demeanour relax because he hasn’t heard her like this in a long time.  
  
They talk about general things, like how her trip’s going and what he’s doing at home, and he tells her about Jihoon but not the fairy part, and she sighs at the right places and gasps at the right places and at the end she says “damn, what a dick.”  
  
Soonyoung tries not to cry. He can hear the door open, and he tells her, and he hears her chuckle.  
  
“Who is it?”  
  
“I don’t know, probably Wonwoo, he’s coming over and he has a spare key, remember?” she laughs again and he can practically see the smile lines at the edges of her eyes, his heart growing warm.  
  
“Well, I won’t bother you then, go have fun. I love you.”  
  
“I love you, too,” she sends him a kiss over the phone and he hangs up, a bittersweet taste in his mouth.  
  
He walks out into the living room, and a familiar lavender head greets him and he has half the mind to turn around and walk away.  
  
Jihoon stares at him, eyes bloodshot and shadowed by dark eyebags, standing out against his even paler skin. His face is blank and emotionless and he looks like he hasn’t slept a wink since they last met. He's wearing his white frock thing again, but this time it’s smudged with dirt.  
  
Soonyoung looks at him, and his heart squeezes so tightly it’s like the past few weeks of trying to stitch his wounds together undo all at once.  
  
“Why are you in my house?”

“I got banished,” he mumbles, “can I stay?”

He doesn’t know what it is about that sentence but it makes Soonyoung so angry he sees red. “You have the nerve to come into my house of not seeing me for _months,_ and you ask if you can stay?”

“Well I’m sorry I was too busy sorting out my fucking home problems to go on stupid dates with you,” he can see Jihoon’s blood start to boil and against his better conscience he decides to add fuel to the fire.

“I can’t always be at your beck and call, Jihoon-“

“Since have I ever fucking becked and called _you_?”

“Since the moment we fucking met!” Jihoon is taken aback, eyes wide and lips parted in shock.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbles.

“Do I?”

They fall silent, the only sounds piercing the air being the loud breaths falling from their lips in the aftermath.

“Fuck you,” Jihoon’s voice is dark and dangerous, a stray tear streaming down his face, “fuck you, to think that I’d ever thought about loving you, fuck you.”  
  
“Then fucking don’t!” Soonyoung yells back, the words choking him as they tumble out of his mouth in a stream of lava. He yells so loudly his throat is hoarse, and at that moment he really doesn’t fucking care about his neighbors or the noise complaints he’s bound to get in the morning.  
  
Jihoon’s face is so red it’s almost dark purple, thunderous storms lighting his dark eyes and reflecting in the rapidly darkening sky outside the windows. He opens his mouth and a crack of thunder cuts through the tense silence.  
  
"I got banished because of _you_ ," he screams, and thunder strikes in his eyes and he looks positively livid and out of control, skin glowing so aggressively Soonyoung almost has to squint. "You don't fucking understand how much I had to go through for you, you fucking _selfish bastard_ ."  
  
"Yeah, and then you _left me,_ " Soonyoung yells back, tears cloud his vision and he rubs them away so aggressively it makes his eyes throb.  
  
"I couldn't stay!" he cries, glowing tears rolling down his face and seeping into the collar of his shirt, "I was too busy being kicked out of my own home to go make googly eyes at you across a table at a restaurant, okay?"  
  
At this point, Soonyoung knows he's in the wrong, if the growing hole of guilt in his gut is anything to go by, but his stubborn nature won't let him have it, and he scowls at the boy across before reaching into the side drawer of his bed and throwing something at him, "here, have your fucking soulshard back, I don't know why I didn't just give it back to you in the first place."  
  
Jihoon's eyes dawn in recognition, and then a sob breaks through his throat. His fingers wrap around the stone, turning it over and over and watching as the soul within reciprocated to his touch by pressing against the walls of its chamber wherever his fingers brushed against.  
  
"I got banished because of this, you know?" He asks through hiccups, looking up at Soonyoung, "the only reason why I could leave was because I told them I was looking for my soulshard because I accidentally dropped it down to Earth 3 years ago, and when they asked me for it I couldn't produce it because I got sidetracked by you," he lets out a bitter laugh and Soonyoung's stomach starts to eat his insides, "so they banished me, because they thought I was lying."  
  
He looks at the stone again, and an anguished cry erupts from his mouth before he throws his arm back and hurtles the stone against the wall of his living room.  
  
The stone smashes, crystalline shards exploding against over the room, and the soul hangs in thin air for a moment before it slams into Jihoon, pushing his body back with so much force it slams it into the wall, and a sickening crack vibrates through the tense air. Soonyoung is frozen.  
  
He sees Jihoon on the floor, writhing in pain, before a flash engulfs his body and he disappears.  
  
As soon as he's gone, Soonyoung feels all the rage evaporate through his skin and everything that was keeping him up before disappears. His legs don't work anymore, and he sinks to the floor in defeat, a quiet sob escaping his throat.  
  
_What had he just done?_

 

–

 

Soonyoung can’t bring himself to go back to work for fear of seeing Jihoon there, and it looks like the weather doesn’t want him to either; storms and clouds heavy in the skies.

He texts Wonwoo out of desperation, telling him about everything, and the boy tells him exactly what he already knows: that he’s stupid and shouldn’t have said anything at all. Soonyoung agrees wholeheartedly, and after that guilt starts to gnaw a hole into his gut.  
  
Their boss lets them slack off for a weekend, but the coming Monday he gets a call to go to work, so he's forced to run through the rain and arrives at the shop, pants and shoes soaking wet.

“Are you okay?” Mingyu asks, and Soonyoung sighs.

“I fucked up, dude.”

“I know,” Mingyu gives him a pat on the back, “but maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”

The day rolls past and he doesn't seem to register it, faces of customers and coworkers flashing in his mind and blurring into nothing but two words: _not Jihoon._

The night falls and he's packing up alone, movements robotic and mind blank. He doesn't know how many times he's wiped all the tables because he can't bring himself to count, but by the looks of it he wouldn't have to clean anything during his night shifts for the next month. 

By the time he lets himself off, the streets have cleared of transportation and people and he starts to wonder how he can get home. Everything is wiped from his mind however, when he sees the familiar figure sitting on the front steps of the shop.

“Hi,” Soonyoung says, because he's not letting himself freeze up and fuck things up again.

“Hey,” Jihoon replies, his voice soft and cracking. It's only then Soonyoung realizes it's stopped raining, the concrete floors grey and dry, and he takes a seat next to the fairy.

Different variations of 'I'm sorry', and 'I fucked up', and 'I miss you' whirl around in his mind, but instead, he takes a shaky breath and extends a hand.

“Let’s start over,” he mumbles. “Hello. My name is Soonyoung. I am a 19 year old kid who’s taking a gap year.”

A little smile appears across Jihoon's face. “I’m Jihoon, and I’m a fairy. I can control the weather and manipulate things, I don’t really know, and I’m virtually homeless,” he accepts the hand, and Soonyoung feels his heart bloom into a flower.  
  
“Hey, how convenient, I happen to have a spare room," Jihoon laughs at that, and he takes it as a cue to continue, "why don’t you stay with me?”

The blinding grin on Jihoon’s face is everything, and as he leans in to kiss Jihoon on the lips, he realizes that for him, loving Jihoon is the easiest thing he'd ever done.

 

-

**Author's Note:**

> this is honestly the first fanfiction that i've actually FINISHED, and its a bit imperfect and rough around the edges and there are so many things i want to change about it but hey, i guess that's okay. i'll just improve more in the future yeah?  
> thank you for sitting through this, i hope it wasnt too painful to read lmao  
> leave some constructive feedback? i'd love to read it <3  
> this was fun, i'll write more someday <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for and all at once (you are the one i have been waiting for)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15549726) by [svtbigbang_mod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/svtbigbang_mod/pseuds/svtbigbang_mod)




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